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Posted by Dan M. (209.92.85.90) on 13:34:36 05/15/14
In Reply to: Here's my trip report from that first Loonion posted by Dan M.
May 26
In the morning we all discover we've brought the same thing for breakfast--Pop Tarts! Actually they are pre-breakfast snacks because we are meeting the Oldtymrs and Mark R and his dad for breakfast in Gardiner at 10:00. That gives Tim A. and I a chance to walk down to the Gardner River before we leave. The murky water is high. I wonder how good the fishing will be. In the past, the Gardner has always produced well, but it doesn't look very promising. We poke along the bank downstream for a couple hundred yards through fresh grass and over ancient travertine layers that are crumbling into the river in slow stages. We find a small steaming waterfall pouring out of one such ledge directly into the river. After proceeding a little further, we head back up to the campground. The grade out of the canyon reminds me of how much conditioning I still need before our trip to Fairyland in August.
In the scrub just off to the side of the road we find broken glass that has been purpled by years in the sun. We search and find the neck of the bottle. It is old; the wide-lipped mouth is unevenly blown and is shaped for a cork. We speculate on its origin and leave it. We have a breakfast to go to in Gardiner.
The All-You-Can-Eat buffet is only 5.99 at the Yellowstone Mine restaurant. All of us (Tim and I, Bruce and Geri, Mark R and his dad, both Tim Ws and Jay) order it. While we're eating Ballpark Frank and his wife Cathy stop in to say hi. After visiting for a while we all (except Ballpark and Cathy) head down to Old Faithful for Dave Monteith's Geyser Tour. There we meet Lew and Deb, and Sandi, Rick, and their niece Shelbi. After posing for the webcam (didn't ANY of you see us there?) Dave gives us a great 2 ½ hour tour, highlighting the thermal features on the way to Riverside Geyser. We get there and not 5 minutes later it erupts for us. On the way back we catch the tail end of an eruption by Grand (not Giant, sorry Matthew) and Plume Geysers. The tour ends at Plume. Tim A. and I head over to Dunraven Pass to scope what can be seen of the area we will be hiking through on our way to Fairyland. The trail is closed and we can only view conditions from road-side turnouts. The extent of the thick forest between where we will start the off-trail portion of the hike and where we want to end up is sobering.
We continue on over Dunraven and descend into Lamar where we hook up with Bruce and Geri and (fanfare) John Uhler and his family! Introductions all around. We visit and watch for animals. As always, it's "You should've been here this morning!" With not much immediate activity from wolves or bears, we halfheartedly watch some elk on a nearby hillside as we visit. We aren't really paying much attention until Tim A (with an understated eloquence befitting the event) says, "Hey, what's that hanging out of that elk's butt?" We all watch in awe as an elk calf enters the world. He is up and walking with scarcely a wobble in no time and after ten minutes he is taking little bucking leaps and running a bit. It is amazing and we congratulate ourselves for being able to see it.
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